Congratulations to Cody Norling (Musicology), who recently completed his PhD with a dissertation titled: “Opera in the Second City: Negotiating National Operatic Identities In and Around 1920s Chicago.” Cody’s work draws on archival documents and press clippings related to some of Chicago’s major opera presenters and supporting organizations to study “opera’s role as a perceived indicator of civic and national progress,” highlighting discourses around economy, class, race, and nationality.

UI musicology alum Christos Sidiropoulos is commencing studies at the University of Ottawa, where he will pursue a PhD in Interdisciplinary Research in Music. Christos successfully defended his thesis on Mikis Theodorakis's film score for Zorba the Greek (1964) in Spring 2023. Congratulations, Christos!

We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Zane Cupec as Visiting Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology. His research interests include new African musical diasporas, race and ethnicity, music and migration, music in religious experience, Caribbean and Latin American musics, transnationalism and transculturation and digital storytelling.

Ross Clowser (Musicology) recently completed his MA with a thesis titled, “A Past, Present, and Future of Des Moines Jazz: An Ethnography of the Des Moines Community Jazz Center’s Student Jam Session.”

This past spring, Ph.D. student Alexis Tuttle sat down with Dr. Anabel Maler to learn more about her and her work as a music theorist. Here are Lexy’s highlights from that conversation. 

Earlier this season, Arthur Scoleri successfully defended their musicology master’s thesis, “‘Thus He is Mine’: Reconciling Queerness and English Musical Tradition in Britten’s Canticle I.”

This spring Kelsey McGinnis successfully defended her dissertation and received her Ph.D. in Musicology. Titled “A Captive Enemy Audience: Music and the Reeducation of German POWs in the United States,” Dr. McGinnis’s dissertation draws on research conducted at the U.S. National Archives and the Iowan Camp Algona POW Archive to consider how musical activities in the camps were experienced and valued differently.

Congratulations to Ryne Carlson, who successfully defended his masters thesis! Ph.D. student Cody Norling recently completed a review of Alexandra Wilson’s Opera in the Jazz Age: Cultural Politics in 1920s Britain,  now available in the Journal of Musicological Research.

The musicology area congratulates our most recent graduate, Dr. Michele Aichele! 

The musicology program proudly recognizes our fall 2018 graduates: Ph.D. recipients, Dr. Sarah Lucas and Dr. Hang Nguyen, and master’s degree recipients, Lily Gaetgaeow and C.A. Norling.

Katherine E. Ramsey, MA in Musicology (2015), has taken a position as the Research and Instructional Librarian for Music, the Arts, and the Performing Arts at Amelia Gayle Gorgas Library at the University of Alabama.

The Music Theory and Musicology areas recently welcomed two new faculty members: Dr. Daniel J. Thompson and Dr. Sarah Suhadolnik. Among their wide-ranging teaching and research initiatives, both share interests in jazz history and contemporary performance.